The Emporia State baseball team is looking to take conference in a doubleheader against Southwest Baptist Friday and Saturday at the Trusler Complex.

If the Hornets win one game this weekend, they will be the MIAA regular season champion and will be the first seed in the conference tournament.

“We have four games with SBU left and we have an opportunity to win the conference and hopefully the rain will stay away,” said Head Coach Bob Fornelli.

Currently, ESU is second in the NCAA Division II South Central Regional and is eighth in the nation in the American Baseball Coaches Association top 30 poll.

“It’s a big weekend knowing that we have a lot of work to do with the conference tournament the following weekend and hopefully a regional after that,” Fornelli said.

Because this weekend’s series concludes the regular season for the Hornets, the win at home is all the more important, especially to the senior members of the team.

“Having a chance to play at home in front of our fans will be pretty fun,” said senior outfielder Conner Crumbliss. “It has been a lot of fun here, it will great to have one last game out there and one last chance to play in front of our good fans.”

Senior Hornets Brody McCullough, Conner Crumbliss, Anthony Dreiling, Kellen Lane, Brendan Higgins, Caleb Williamson, Brett McBride, Diego Soto, Mike Sharp, Tyler Applehans, Abe Steinbach, Lucas Fornelli and Ryan Anthony will all be recognized at the start of game two on Saturday.

Although the Hornets went 1-3 in their last series on the road against Missouri Southern, Fornelli said the team is still finishing the season strong.

“We have had 48 games this season so to only lose a couple in the year which is pretty good so hopefully we’ll come out and continue to battle an do some good things,” he said.

Coming into this game, Crumbliss is hitting .403 this season and is has 43 RBI. He leads the Hornets in steals with 25 stolen bases, is second in the nation in runs scored per game and holds the ESU record in runs scored.

Sharp is currently leading the MIAA in home runs and is second in runs driven in per game. He is hitting .400 on the year and is leading the team with 12 home runs and is second in RBI with 52 on the year.

With weather less than cooperative this week, the Hornets have had a lack of field practice.

“It is hard to prepare when you can’t go outside and practice,” Fornelli said. “We will do everything we can to come out and have a good weekend and we’ll see what happens.”

The Hornets will hit off game one at 4 p.m. this Friday.

Doug Irby/The Bulletin

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PHOTO BY KELLEN JENKINS

The Emporia State baseball team batted their way to a run rule in the seventh inning against Sterling College Tuesday night, winning the game 15-3.

The Hornets scored nine runs in the first inning to set the pace for the remainder of the game.

“We had a big first inning which helped,” said Head Coach Bob Fornelli. “We played hard, did the right things and will have a couple good practices before the big weekend.”

ESU showed offensive dominance with 18 hits on the night.

Conner Crumbliss went 3-3 at bat with three runners batted in. Jeremy Francis hit 3-4 with two RBI. Kevin Wempe went 3-2 with two RBI and Mike Sharp went 2-2 with two RBI and hit the only home run for the Hornets. Jacob White finished with three runs scored.

“They kept throwing a lot of fast balls over the plate and if you do that to our team we are going to get a lot of hits,” Crumbliss said. “If they throw it over the plate, we are going to hit it.”

The Hornets held their own on defense, with five different pitchers getting 13 strike outs.

On the mound for ESU, Tyler Applehans struck out all six batters in the first and second innings to get his seventh win. Ben Graham, Colby Killian, Cole Moore and Diego Soto all got time on the mound.

“We had not played since last weekend so we wanted to run guys out there we know are going to pitch this weekend,” Fornelli said.

With the win, the Hornets are now 38-6 overall and are 24-3 in the MIAA.

“I think we have it locked already for first place but we need to just keep winning so we can host the regional here,” Francis said.

The Hornets prepare now for a three game series against 19-9 Missouri Southern.

“We have a big weekend against a good Missouri Southern and if we don’t play well we will come home with a broken heart,” Fornelli said. “We need to play hard, play fast and do the little things to be successful.”

ESU will play the first game at 6 p.m. April 24 at Joplin, Mo.

Doug Irby/The Bulletin

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